Serial Attraction
by Hweianime
Summary: AU where everyone who loves Tsuna is pretty much a serial killer. And Tsuna just wants to be normal.
1. Case 1

**Hi hi~~**

 **This is another fic idea I've almost forgotten about until I rescrolled through my old notes. It was meant to be an attempt at a serial killer AU where pretty much everyone BUT Tsuna is one.**

 **Enjoy~~**

* * *

 **Case 1**

Mochida was his first. Tsuna didn't remember his last name. It really didn't matter in the scheme of things. Mochida wasn't _that_ important other than being there at an earlier time than everyone else really.

He had been a bully, that cliche one who likes to call names and tease and push the people they like around. Just the thing kids tend to do.

Mochida loved to bully Tsuna the most. He was the first one to tease him, to shove him, to initiate any contact at all with the small quiet shy brunette. Obviously things began escalating. Tsuna couldn't find anything in him to stop the upperclassman from doing so either. Because while it _hurt_ and it was _painful_ and he had always found his wide brown eyes at the brink of tears-

The little boy didn't want the only person who really noticed and actively seek him out to disappear from his life.

However Mochida grew crueler, more obsessive to the point where even his lackeys and peers could feel something was wrong. Tsuna found dead animals on his table during class, he found jeering taunting notes in his locker and everything, the brunette realised, had gone a step horrifyingly too far.

He went to the teachers, his mother, even his classmates who usually would ignore him. There was evidence to his story, his classmates backed him up saying they had seen firsthand the little 'gifts' that he'd received, his teachers had reported the incident and attempted to try and split this toxic relationship as far as possible and his mother never had been so protective and vigilant until now. Tsuna felt _safe_ and _loved_ and _wanted_. He almost wanted to _thank_ Mochida for his cruelty.

When Sawada Tsunayoshi was seven years old he was found missing.

After 72 hours they found him bound, beaten and crying in a dimly lit, dirty abandoned shed just a few minutes away from Mochida's house. The boy was surrounded by the corpses of little animals. _Gifts._

Mochida was his first.

He wasn't the last.


	2. Case 2

**Case 2**

* * *

The next was a little more memorable.

Gokudera Hayato.

Tsuna was 10 when he'd met him. He was scary and scowling and honestly Tsuna didn't even want to look at the taller boy when he arrived into his classroom all angry and vicious. _Destructive_. Tsuna knew better to go near people who acted like that.

But he also couldn't possibly just stand there and watch the other die in front of him either.

The brunette remembered his eyes looking back at those shining emerald green ones as the adrenalin from his tackle ebbed away from his small body. He had never looked at a person directly in the eyes for a long time, his was a rather spectacular shining colour. Tsuna could almost ignore that far too close, brush of death he almost had with the falling roof beam.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly, worriedly. Real concern and fear in him. For this stranger. A person he hadn't even planned to talk to for the rest of his life.

"You, _you_ saved me." Was all the other kid breathed out in breathy shock and awe. It was a stupid thing to say really. So Tsuna just smiled politely and just replied, "Of course." Like it had been the most obvious thing to do in the world.

Gokudera and he instantly became close after that. The silver haired boy's personality had made a complete 180, from angry and fierce and violent to happy and charming and endearingly puppy-like. Looking back on it now that really should have been the first clue that something was off about Gokudera.

But Tsuna was just so, _so_ overjoyed to have a friend.

That joy was tragically short-lived.

Somehow Gokudera found out about Mochida. Tsuna had never told him. No one _ever_ spoke of that incident. The brunette never did know how the silver haired boy had found out but he did. He did and of course everything changed.

He became violent and possessive and would actually snarl and threaten anyone who dared go near Tsuna, talk to him, even look at him. Sometimes when Tsuna would be the one to initiate contact with anyone else other than Gokudera, he would find himself pushed harshly against a wall, enraged green (no longer beautiful and clear, just clouded, so terrifyingly clouded) intensely glaring at him with vehement jealous. The smaller boy would cry as the other shouted and yelled and dug his nails into soft skin as if the pain would integrate the words better.

Then like a little switch all the fight and rage would flow out of him like water to a drain. Gokudera would apologise, tears forming in his eyes and try to coax Tsuna out of whatever hysteria he was in. Gokudera became gentle, painfully gentle as he took care of the brunette's wounds and treated him with a carefulness that Tsuna had felt like a delicate fragile precious doll. The repeated whispered apologies and _'I'm only doing this because I care'_ and _'Why can't you see how much you mean to me?'_ and _'I love you, I love you, I can't possibly let anything hurt you ever again, I love you,'_ still occasionally echoed in Tsuna's ears.

People began dying. Poison. _Cyanide._ The ingredients for dynamite found in their stomach contents. One Mochida was found first, face down in a pool of his own vomit and blood and urine. He was supposed to leave Juvie the next day. Never did.

The next few were some of Tsuna's former bullies. They had apologised and left the young child alone after the whole Mochida incident. Not many still remembered they had bullied the brunette with gravity-defying hair. But here they were. Dead in the quarters of their own homes. Poisoned.

Tsuna picked up the pieces relatively fast. It help Gokudera looked so _proud_ , his green eyes glittering and looking at Tsuna with such hope and expectancy for his approval Tsuna felt _sick._

Gokudera never had been caught, he was a genius after all. But his family had found out about his little 'obsession', it hadn't been that hard not to, and wisely moved to Italy. Gokudera had cried and held onto Tsuna with such force that the brunette had hand-sized bruises for days. His green eyes, dim, erratic, no longer bright but dark and dangerous would not leave Tsuna's scared honey brown ones (he was ordinary, _so_ _ordinary_ , why must he go through this?) as he promised to come back, that he will find him and never let him go.

Tsuna felt terrible for feeling so relieved to find out the silver haired child and his family died in a car crash less than a year later.


	3. Case 3

**Hi hi~~**

 **Ok. Just gotta say.. 60 reviews for two incredibly short chapters? I'm part extremely flattered and part OMG WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS?! I mean I thought I was pretty twisted writing this shit but YOU, _YOU_ guys I did not see coming. **

**I only just noticed how high the review count was on this. Legit kind of upset that my more 'normal' (well as normal as my fics can be) get waaay less reviews compared tbh. Of course that makes you guys pretty amazing, weirdly amazing but still amazing.**

 **Anyway,**

 **Enjoy~~**

* * *

 **Case 3**

* * *

He never really understood what he had done to win over the attention of Yamamoto Takeshi. Actually the whole thing felt just like a rather shoddily done soap opera script where despite everything he did, he just couldn't seem to be worth anything to stop the ending. He wasn't worth anything. Why was this happening to him? He was nothing.

Yamamoto was popular and well-liked and Tsuna was, well Tsuna was _not_. He wasn't bullied anymore, but he didn't exactly have friends either, considering anyone before who had come too close usually met with an unfortunate case of poisoning.

That had been a year ago but the fear was still a fresh and bloody wound.

Anyway, one afternoon when the brunette was alone on clean up duty, much to his surprise he found the baseball player inviting himself to join him with that eerie, hollow smile on his face. Tsuna really didn't like that smile, it was like something painted on, plastic, like a clown. Yet it seemed only he could see it for what it was.

But Yamamoto had offered to help him with the tedious work and what harm would there be in accepting the offer? Gratefully he handed the raven haired boy a broom and they worked in companionable, comfortable silence. It was nice. Definitely an enjoyable afternoon.

It became a pattern. Whenever Tsuna had cleaning duty Yamamoto offered to help and they would just do their own thing before bidding farewell. He should have at least picked up on how strange it was for his classmates to have managed to consistently skip class duties every time they were grouped with Tsuna. He should have picked up that Yamamoto usually had his team practice near every afternoon yet he was always there in the classroom, supposedly free. He should have noticed something. Anything.

But again he was blinded by the fact someone, he didn't even care about popularity, he was just so desperate for someone, to give him that care and attention. Desperate and pathetic and alone. If Tsuna was going to be completely honest, looking back it was around this age he begun craving this 'honeymoon' phase in these interactions. That small, brief time that made him feel cosy and content. Before it started to turn for the worse.

And it always seemed to turn for the worse.

"Tsuna, do you like me?" It was really the first thing Yamamoto had ever said to him other than the obligatory, "Can I help?" question he'd always asked. Not wanting to turn down his one chance at actually getting a decent conversation going yet at the same time too painfully shy to get his mouth moving, the brunette just looked at the other coyly and nodded. He did like Yamamoto. Yamamoto was nice and helped him and while he didn't smile at Tsuna, Tsuna honestly didn't mind because that smile was so fake it hurt. There was something almost flattering about the fact that fakeness -for god knows what reason- wasn't directed at Tsuna.

He really should've clarified what _'like'_ had actually meant.

After that Yamamoto started… clinging. It wasn't immediate. The change was apparent but not so sudden it was alarming. Maybe that was why he hadn't caught on to it right away, Gokudera had shifted faces so fast it was like he had been two very different people but Yamamoto was subtle, slowly, quietly, repainting his being with colours only a shade darker than it was before. Darker. And darker. And _darker._

What was once a maybe common school afternoon ritual evolved into interactions outside of the class. The baseball athlete inviting him to his place for something to eat, to finish that assignment they've both left out till the very last minute, that movie he'd been itching to show Tsuna when he'd mention it a few days ago. It seemed so normal. How could he have known?

He should have known. Since when did anything normal happen to him?

There were _touches_. Yamamoto was a very hands on person, but somehow it felt different than those casual pats on the back and friendly arm slinging Tsuna had seen him do to the others. Tanned skin always lingered on his own, each time it felt just a little longer, the heat uncomfortable and unnerving. But the brunette brushed it off, he wasn't used to much physical contact other than with his mother after all. He was being paranoid. He had to be. Yamamoto never did anything wrong. This time it was different. _It had to be._

His mother always said third time was the charm.

Four months, it took four months of precious warm memories with the taller boy, before the other shoe dropped. Tsuna had just been walking alone in the halls of school as usual when someone called out to him softly.

"Tsuna-kun? Tsuna-kun come here."

He turned, honey brown fixating on Kyoko Sasagawa. Beautiful sweet, sweet girl who would always spare a smile for even him. Sometimes even a wave when no one could even look at him without being reminded of bloodied cats and vomit covered children. But right now there was no sugar smiles or wide waves, there was just a pretty girl beckoning him toward an empty classroom with a wariness that people only get once they found something to be scared of.

Tsuna's found his, twice over in fact, and yet he still wants to trust, wants to hope, wants to accept. He's weak but at the same time strong, in the worst kinds of ways.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, his words are soft and quiet because the girl looks on the verge of a panic attack. She shuts the door behind him and Tsuna can't help but stiffen when he notices there's others in the classroom. They're vaguely familiar, some are definitely from his class but that's where the recollection ends.

"We want you to stay away from Yamamoto." Someone says and it clicks for the brunette that most of these people are from the baseball club or at least part of the star athlete's posse. Then the words register and Tsuna could only shake his head confused and admittedly a little angry. He had a friend. He had normality. Why are they trying to take that away?

"Yamamoto's been different." Kyoko tried to explain.

"Different?" He asked and soon everyone was trying to add in things they've noticed about the baseballer.

"He's always skipping practice now."

"He barely hangs out with anyone but you." A girl accused.

"And when Yamamoto-san does he's not his usual cheery self." Someone else said nervously.

"He's rougher. Kind of scary sometimes."

"Plus he's always talking about you."

"Tsuna likes this. Tsuna hates mushrooms. Tsuna said this. Tsuna has the cutest stuffed lion that he hides in his closet. Tsuna's got the most interesting books."

The brunette can feel himself sweating ice at the last remarks. " _Wait_ ," he croaks, interrupting another fan girl's rant. "Yamamoto's never been to my house."

It's true. He's been so, _so careful._ They've only hung out at Yamamoto's place or around town. Tsuna was actually going to finally let the taller boy come over next week. He actually thought it would be okay. Actually thought this was different. That he could trust

There's a silence that settles of the children. It's so cold it dries the words in their throats and yet is so suffocatingly hot that sweat runs from their bodies as if to escape the implications of what has been revealed. Tsuna wants to scream and cry until his lungs just give out and collapse in a bloody mess. Because it's happening again.

Why is it happening again?

Once is an anomaly, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

He does not _want_ this to be a pattern. He does not want this again. This is madness and insanity and illness. This is obsession and fear and death. This is the smell of rotting flesh and the sound of fireworks.

 _This needs to stop._

Yamamoto surprisingly takes the rejection with a smile when Tsuna meekly stumbles through his explanation to why they shouldn't hang out anymore. The baseballer smiles and laughs and nods understandingly, it's hollow plastic in Tsuna's eyes of course but the point is he just leaves. He's surprised. Even normal people should have been upset about that, Tsuna is pretty sure he would have cried if the roles were reversed. He kind of wants to cry anyway.

They part ways and it's like the whole school heaves a relieved sigh that they've been holding in the whole time. Tsuna's back to being the shadow in the corner no one wants to notice and Yamamoto's back in the spotlight, smiling that painted on smile that charms them all. No one notices that with every passing minute under the harsh heat of the lights, the paint is slowly coming off. It's coming off and there's nothing to stop it now.

The stage has been set and the actors are in place. The drama is nearing the end. It's time to take the costumes and the make up and reveal the bloody monsters inside.

Monday morning the week after Namimori was greeted to six dead bodies. Broken bones, ugly blotches of bruised skin and a face unrecognisable from the pulpy mess it made. Their heads were caved in from a blunt object. They were from the baseball team according to their uniforms. They struggled and suffered according to the security camera. They were sacrifices according to Yamamoto.

Or at least… What was left of him.

The tall tanned body of the teen was crumpled on the ground outside, next to the only building with a rooftop access. His limbs splayed brokenly, twisted like a marionette that had been cruelly abused by a small child. Sawada Tsunayoshi lay there on top of him, miraculously with only an arm broken, a severely twisted ankle and a fractured skull. Yamamoto must've been the buffer between the boy and an untimely death.

Police found a written confession. He hadn't been the most intelligent student and all his delusions were easily found on a simple file on his laptop. They read all about the about god's the teen had worshipped, the ones who had gifted him with his skills in baseball and cursed him with the constant buzz of shallow adorations. About how he needed a sky to swallow him whole and accept him like how the baseball gods did, how he had become greedy soaking in the sky and neglected his duties to perform, failed, and once he saw his wrongs he had to rectify and appease the gods. In blood.

Namimori Middle School had to be shut down for a month to sort everything out and to.. _refurnish._

TakeSushi shut down after that, the owner unable to deal with it all having to leave the town.

Tsuna stayed in a coma for two weeks. When he woke up, the brunette didn't talk for twice as long. He still refuses to talk about what had happened that night and morn. No one blamed him. What limited video they had, it was apparent the teen had been a witness to everything, every single swing, squelch and scream.

Yamamoto died instantly, with his clothes and skin stained red with blood that was not his, his dented baseball bat hidden in a locker and the most geniune smile on his lips.

At least someone could still smile after all of this.


	4. Case 4

**Hi hi~~**

 **This.. Actually was quite hard for me to do to be honest. I couldn't think of anything! So this chapter isn't my best in my opinion but I hope you-**

 **Enjoy~~**

* * *

 **Case 4**

It was only a month.

One month since Yamamoto. One month since seven dead bodies- a corpse for every day that they had stopped being friends- including the perpetrator himself had been splayed out in the morning sun of Namimori Middle school. One month of mourning, of grief, of peace.

And then blood was once again spilled.

School had just restarted. The baseball team was for all purposes disbanded and the school population was wary and sickened every time they stepped on the dirt covered grounds. Try as they might they could wash away the blood and replace all the earth on the ground but in the minds of the children, it will stain deeper than any simple washcloth or cheque could wipe away.

Tsuna wasn't just an outcast anymore. Nothing so simple. In a small town like this one, rumors and speculation were what fueled the people. With three killers in the last few years, demons in the form of children gravitating around the same small boy with eyes as sweet as honey, it was hard not to talk.

Some were sympathetic. Others still hardened by their grief for their friends, their family, their homes were less so. With the monsters dead, buried and mangled there was only one person still breathing through it all and Tsuna hated that it was him.

They blamed him. Blamed him for not standing up for himself in the beginning with Mochida. For not saying no to Gokudera. For saying no to Yamamoto. Ifs and buts and whys haunted the boy in the weight of the bodies he had indirectly caused. And for someone so young, just on the cusp of puberty, that was a heavy burden indeed.

It wasn't _fair_. He was just as affected by all of this if not more so. Yamamoto was supposed to be a friend. The baseball star was supposed to be nice, _normal._ Tsuna felt anger and nausea and betrayal brimming at the back of his head just at the thought of that suicidal bat-wielding psychopath. Screams and pleading and the squelching sound of bat and bone echoed in the silence constantly. Hot, burning reds soaked the cool darkness of the night. Dreams have left the boy, fled, run away, because dreams were for the good and the innocent and he was neither.

Good and innocent people don't cause dead animals, poisoned bullies, and seven dead athletes.

Good people stop those sort of things.

But by that logic though no one in this place should be considered 'good people'. It was a cold hollow comfort but one the boy made all the less.

Because Sawada Tsunayoshi was certainly not good people.

* * *

The only one who really talked to Tsuna these days was Ryohei Sasagawa.

Talked was a strong word. Tsuna walked aimlessly around the town like the ghost he should've been and Ryohei would run around on his millionth lap, shouting and waving and smiling at the brunette whenever their paths tended to cross.

Tsuna tried to ignore him at first, any attention was bad attention in his opinion. But it took a pathetically short time for him to break like a thin twig and wave tentatively back at the enthusiastic athlete. He hadn't spoke to a person for weeks by then and while he knows he doesn't deserve it, doesn't deserve anything really, he can't help but still want.

He wants to have friends. He wants to be normal. He wants, he _wants-_

"GOOD MORNING TSUNA!" Ryohei yelled, loud and brash and warm like the sun.

"H-hello Sasagawa-san." He whispered, a soft breath of a greeting that could have been easily dismissed as a wisp of wind. Yet the boxer somehow heard him, his smile large and almost brightening in how pure and happy it was.

-He wants so _badly_ to be loved.

* * *

They started hanging out. Not like playing video games or coming over to each other's places or anything. Just walking together for a bit when they inevitably meet, listening to the older brash boy chatter, laughing together.

Tsuna wasn't better, he was still scared and guilty and beaten down. He was so far from the word 'better' and 'good' and even the word 'relatively okay,' it would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic. But the boy looked forward to these moments with Ryohei, bright and blinding. When the darkness surrounding him for a small moment vanishes and the bruises on his body forget to sting and buzz accusingly. He looked so desperately forward to these meetings, Tsuna didn't even realize how strange it was they managed to meet every single day, no matter the place.

Didn't realize that the sun, shining and so full of light, casting away the horrors of the night, always hides the worst monsters out of sight. Because where brightness follows, darkness always lurks nearby in the shadows being cast.

He was being blinded. Blinded by his own yearning, the simple comforts of companionship and the sunny smile of his friend. Nothing seemed off about Ryohei, he was as genuine as they came, there was nothing faked or forced or manipulative about him. Everything the tanned teen did, had done and will do, was all a hundred percent Ryohei.

Which is probably the most terrifying thing about what happened next.

* * *

It, like Ryohei, happened spontaneously, suddenly and extremely.

There was legitimately no sort of sign, no clue, no hint beforehand. A normal day. A normal week. Comforting in its mundane ordinariness. And while everyone has barely just started moving on from the horrific nightmare not too long ago, people were beginning to breathe easy again.

Unfortunately, not all of them would be breathing again.

Tsuna woke up to screams that morning. For once it wasn't his own. For once, he was far from grateful for the reprieve.

His bedroom window had a bloody handprint sliding off it, casting a shadow in the morning light. In the not so distant distance, Tsuna could see bodies hanging off the telephone wires like blankets out to dry. From the fresh red liquid still dripping on his window, the brunette had a terrifying thought that those bodies were hanging out to dry for a much more literal reason.

The sunlight burned painfully.

* * *

Tsuna spent the rest of the morning with his frightened mother, holed in his house, wary. His fear simmering underneath his skin as he waited. Even after everything, he doesn't think the fear would ever grow away, would ever feel 'less'. It's cold and hot and electrifying in all the worst ways. There's always shadows where there's none and whispers in the silence. How could anyone get used to that?

There were four bodies. A gossipmonger of a housewife, a doctor, a reporter, and Nezu sensei. It sounded like the start of a really bad joke. Except no joke ended with all four people hanging off telephone wires, their lower jaws ripped out in a show of brutal, brutal strength, and their clothing gone. No joke ended with tongues lolling out, soaked in their own blood as they hung in their exposed, open throats. No joke ended with sightless eyes and twisted necks. No one was certainly laughing.

In the end, the wait was for nothing. It said a lot about a simple place like Namimori when they seemed to know exactly what to do now when faced with such gory examples of what human monstrosity can do. The police were called. Evidence was found. It also helped that Ryohei turned himself in the very same day. Dazed and splattered in red.

Was it wrong that Tsuna somehow felt a pinprick of something like disappointment at that?

Whatever the feeling was, it quickly went away when he found where exactly the missing lower jaws were.

Laid out shameless in the light, staining the grass in his garden, was the torn frameworks of four people's mouth. The jaws were placed in such a way that they looked like two hearts splitting in their middle as blood and pinked teeth and muscle scattered out of it like some sick, morbid piece of modern art.

It was disgusting. It was gruesome. It was grisly.

 _So why didn't he scream?_


End file.
